And ever after, if he walked into a club or bumped into them on the street, he would be into them for another fifty plus whatever they were carrying. Let anyone try saying no and they were sorted good.
Inside a matter of weeks I talked with two pianists, a drummer, a guitarist and three sax players — what is it with saxophonists? — who agreed to dish the dirt on Neville if it would get him off their backs. And finally, after a lot of arguing and pleading, I persuaded Foxy to sit down with Holland in an otherwise empty room, neutral territory, and tell him what he knew.
After that, carefully, Holland spoke to a few of Neville’s team, officers who were already compromised and eager to protect themselves as best they could. From a distance, he watched Neville himself. Checked, double-checked.
The report he wrote was confidential and he took it to the new Deputy Assistant Commissioner, one of the few high-ranking bosses he thought he could trust.
It was agreed that going public would generate bad publicity for the force and that should be avoided at all costs. Neville was shunted sideways, somewhere safe, and after several months allowed to retire on a full pension for reasons of ill health.
One of his mutually beneficial contacts had been with a businessman from Nicosia, import and export, and that was where Neville hived off to, counting his money, licking his wounds.
I was at the airport to see him off.
Three and a bit years ago now.
I took Tom Holland’s advice and cleaned up my act, the occasional drag at some weed aside. Tom, he’s a detective chief inspector now and tipped for higher things. I don’t play any more, rarely feel the need. There are a couple of bands I manage, groups that’s what they call them these days, one from Ilford, one from Palmers Green. And I keep myself fit, swim, work out in the gym. One thing a drummer has, even a second-rate ex-drummer like me, is strong wrists, strong hands.
I don’t reckon Neville staying in Cyprus for ever, can’t see it somehow; he’ll want to come back to the smoke. And when he does, I’ll meet him. Maybe even treat him to a drink. Ask if he remembers Ethel, the way she lay back, twisted, on the bed, her broken neck…
FAVOUR
Kiley hadn’t heard from Adrian Costain in some little time, not since one of Costain’s A-list clients had ended up in an all-too-public brawl, the pictures syndicated round the world at the touch of a computer key, and Kiley, who had been hired to prevent exactly that kind of thing happening, had been lucky to get half his fee.
‘If we were paying by results,’ Costain had said, ‘you’d be paying me.’
Kiley had had new cards printed. ‘Investigations. Private and Confidential. All kinds of security work undertaken. Ex-Metropolitan Police’. Telephone and fax numbers underneath. Cheaper by the hundred, the young woman in Easyprint had said, Kiley trying not to stare at the tattoo that snaked up from beneath the belt of her jeans to encircle her navel, the line of tiny silver rings that tinkled like a miniature carillon whenever she moved her head.
Now the cards were pinned, some of them, outside newsagents’ shops all up and down the Holloway Road and around; others he’d left discreetly in pubs and cafes in the vicinity; once, hopefully, beside the cash desk at the Holloway Odeon after an afternoon showing of Insomnia, Kiley not immune to Maura Tierney’s charms.
Most days, the phone didn’t ring, the fax failed to ratchet into life.
‘Email, that’s what you need, Jack,’ the Greek in the corner cafe where he sometimes had breakfast assured him. ‘Email, the Net, the World Wide Web.’
What Kiley needed was a new pair of shoes, a way to pay next month’s rent, a little luck. Getting laid wouldn’t be too bad either: it had been a while.
He was on his way back into the flat, juggling the paper, a pint of milk, a loaf of bread, fidgeting for the keys, when the phone started to ring.
Too late, he pressed recall and held his breath.
‘Hello?’ The voice at the other end was suave as cheap margarine.
‘Adrian?’
‘You couldn’t meet me in town, I suppose? Later this morning. Coffee.’
Kiley thought that he could.
When he turned the corner of Old Compton Street into Frith Street, Costain was already sitting outside Bar Italia, expensively suited legs lazily crossed, Times folded open, cappuccino as yet untouched before him.
Kiley squeezed past a pair of media types earnestly discussing first-draft scripts and European funding, and took a seat at Costain’s side.
‘Jack,’ Costain said. ‘It’s been too long.’ However diligently he practised his urbane, upper-class drawl there was always that telltale tinge of Ilford, like a hair ball at the back of his throat.
Kiley signalled to the waitress and leaned back against the painted metal framework of the chair. Across the street, Ronnie Scott’s was advertising Dianne Adams, foremost amongst its coming attractions.
‘I didn’t know she was still around,’ Kiley said.
‘You know her?’
‘Not really.’
What Kiley knew were old rumours of walkouts and no-shows, a version of ‘Stormy Weather’ that had been used a few years back in a television commercial, an album of Gershwin songs he’d once owned but not seen in, oh, a decade or more. Not since Dianne Adams had played London last.
‘She’s spent a lot of time in Europe since she left the States,’ Costain was saying. ‘Denmark. Holland. Still plays all the big festivals. Antibes, North Sea.’
Kiley was beginning to think Costain’s choice of venue for their meeting was down to more than a love of good coffee. ‘You’re representing her,’ he said.
‘In the UK, yes.’
Kiley glanced back across the street. ‘How long’s she at Ronnie’s?’
‘Two weeks.’
When Kiley had been a kid and little more, those early cappuccino days, a girl he’d been seeing had questioned the etiquette of eating the chocolate off the top with a spoon. He did it now, two spoonfuls before stirring in the rest, wondering, as he did so, where she might be now, if she still wore her hair in a ponytail, the hazy green in her eyes.
‘You could clear a couple of weeks, Jack, I imagine. Nights, of course, afternoons.’ Costain smiled and showed some teeth, not his but sparkling just the same. ‘You know the life.’
‘Not really.’
‘Didn’t you have a pal? Played trumpet, I believe?’
‘Saxophone.’
‘Ah, yes.’ As if they were interchangeable, a matter of fashion, an easy either-or.
Derek Becker had played Ronnie’s once or twice, in his pomp, not headlining, but taking the support slot with his quartet, Derek on tenor and soprano, occasionally baritone, along with the usual piano, bass and drums. That was before the booze really hit him bad.
‘Adams,’ Costain said, ‘it would just be a matter of babysitting, making sure she gets to the club on time, the occasional interview. You know the drill.’
‘Hardly seems necessary.’
‘She’s not been in London in a good while. She’ll feel more comfortable with a hand to hold, a shoulder to lean on.’ Costain smiled his professional smile. ‘That’s metaphorically, of course.’
They both knew he needed the money; there was little more, really, to discuss.
‘She’ll be staying at Le Meridien,’ Costain said. ‘On Piccadilly. From Friday. You can hook up with her there.’
The meeting was over, Costain was already glancing at his watch, checking for messages on his mobile phone.
‘All those years in Europe,’ Kiley said, getting to his feet, ‘no special reason she’s not been back till now?’
Costain shook his head. ‘Representation, probably. Timings not quite right.’ He flapped a hand vaguely at the air. ‘Sometimes it’s just the way these things are.’